STATCOUNTER

Dirty little hands

David Carr was a writer for The New York Times. He was an acclaimed cultural reporter and also was on the faculty at Boston University’s communications school, where he taught a class called Voice Lessons. Which is where he made this point: “Quit sounding like everyone else and begin sounding like yourself.”

Now, this advice is not unknown to each of us. But the more times you hear it, from the widest range of authorities, the more likely it is to actually sink in. As a teaching assistant of his put it, “He didn’t want us to sound like everyone else…and clichés were poison. He told me constantly. “Create something with your own dirty little hands.”

I love that thought of “dirty little hands.” No clean, antiseptic, harmless phrases for him. Nor should they be for you, for that matter. When you reread your copy (you do, don’t you?), don’t settle for checking your grammar, or counting word repetitions. How about checking the actual content, to see if there is a way to crisp it up, take the fat and familiar out, and create something new with your own dirty little hands.

One final thought of his that might also prove to be helpful: “Ending stories with a quote from someone else is often the coward’s way out.”